The Camino:A Peaceful Unpredictability:Part 3. St Jean Pied de Port to Pamplona

 I awoke in darkness in St Jean Pied de Port in France on the first proper morning of my walk towards the Camino de Santiago in northern Spain.  The rumpled unisex room in the auberge where I was staying was full of bunks, snores and various rustlings. Babbling thoughts ran  around my head like errant cats. The big question looming. How was I going to get washed and dressed quietly while sharing a room with six others? How was I going to lay out items so that all was easily accessible? This was to dog me for the rest of my time on the camino. Never mind blisters, aching limbs, unknown entities, rain, and dormitory life. My main bugbear was that I could not seem to get myself organised quickly in the mornings. Throughout my time on the camino I seemed to be eternally hunched down over my rucksack, rummaging and ruffling around and invariably misplacing something and then taking ages to find it. Although I would be one of the first up in the mornings, many others would pass me by as I squatted down, contents of my rucksack exasperatedly strewn around. As I would sit back on my hunkers all hot and bothered, images would flash through my head of several anxious wee ladies in the nursing home where I worked. They would be eternally pacing and searching for a handbag, comb, medication, handkerchief or any other item that was never missing in the first place. Working in a nursing home meant that I was witness to what we would all become in our sunset years. Some of it makes for ominous reading.   On a different practical and slightly more optimistic note -   on the whole business of ablutions, showers etc., I found wet wipes to be a godsend and used these in the mornings and had a proper shower in the evenings. 

Once on my way, the first part of the walk out of St Jean Pied de Port was uneventful and pleasant – small rolling hills and a pastoral aspect a little reminiscent of Leitrim where I lived in Ireland. I leaned into the road and it ascended benignly at first. Then it became painfully steep and on top of that it started to rain. I bent down into it hunching down, my nose nearly touching the ground as if curling into myself would ward off the pernicious, seeping of dampness into my bones.  It seems that this initial ascent out of town is one of the hardest parts of the camino. In fact it seems this French end of the camino is harder going than the other end, going into Santiago. I have a horror of becoming damp especially in my feet. Thankfully my boots stayed water proof but my rain mac started letting the rain in after about ten minutes.  I continued to set my head to the rain and wind   like a mountain sheep in the glens of Leitrim  and kept going. But I was disturbed to think that I could have two more weeks of this. Eventually we turned a corner and just as I was setting my teeth once again to the rain, I saw an auberge up ahead at a place called Orisson. A bowl of soup and a bit of a dry out and things looked brighter. 

View of the Pyrenees from Orisson

Thankfully it stopped raining and I set off at a buoyant pace as if that spell of rain had laundered me out and set me up for the way ahead.  I was feeling more relieved as this was a particularly long stretch of the camino (27km) and there was nowhere to stay if I wanted to opt out so to speak. The thought of battling rain for twenty seven km had frankly horrified me so I was mightily relieved that it had stopped. I continued to walk over the Pyrenees’ and was entranced by wild ponies on the horizon with eagles wheeling overhead.

Ponies on the Pyrenees

The day continued somewhat dull but it was a good feeling to be walking over what felt to be the top of the world. The road was good but the land on either side was unfenced and made up of wild heath land. Eventually I started the descent to Roncesvalles my next stop on the camino. I came upon the fork in the road much maligned by the patron of the auberge I had stayed in the day before at St Jean Pied de Port with the shorter but steep descent to the left. Taking his advice I avoided it assiduously despite my aching legs and feet. The other descent to the right rolled out beneath in a long and leisurely fashion with wonderful and relaxing views of Roncesvalles down below. But after twenty seven km I found the descent far too leisurely and with each corkscrew bend I prayed we were close to Roncesvalles.

Roncesvalles is a religious settlement at the foot of the Pyrenees in Navarre province and is the first major point of the departure on the camino in Spain.

Albergue at Roncesvalles

It was founded in 1132 AD as a religious community and hospice, the main aim being to protect pilgrims from wolves and encourage devotion to the Virgin Mary. The settlement is large including the albergues for pilgrims – it holds over two hundred people. It had recently been restored. After such a long and arduous walk it was great to see how modern everything was and all tastefully ensconced within the ancient building.

The pod like structures in the Roncesvalles albergue

The dormitories were set up in pod like structures in capsules of four with two up and two down in bunk bed fashion. But there were cleverly fashioned spaces to put your rucksack etc. in. I was absolutely ravenous and after a shower etc. had that glowing feeling of being gloriously tired and  triumphantly exhilarated, after having tackled such a challenging walk over the Pyrenees. Thank goodness there was pasta as a starter at the pilgrims’ meal that night as my body completely craved and sucked up the carbohydrates.

The walk next day with the next destination being Zubiri was easier and shorter at around twenty km or so. It began with a sunny stroll through the forest. After the day before the pressure was off and it was good to know we had plenty of villages and albergues to choose from on the way, in the unfortunate scenario of not being able to walk the twenty km. In the forest I walked along briefly with a German girl .She had been walking for three weeks since she left her home in Germany and was planning to walk the present camino (700km) in about three weeks. After a while she sped off having built up a spanking pace after weeks of walking. It was one of the things I was noticing on the camino. It suits both extroverts and introverts. You can interact as much or as little as you want with people. There is a sort of elegant etiquette whereby generally you end up walking a while with someone whose pace matches yours. You chat for as long as one or other wishes and then you or the other person can either hang back or speed up. This is all carried out with cheerful and polite directness e.g. “I am going to speed up a bit now” as said by the German girl.

Zubiri was a greyish rather industrial town, made greyer by the dull afternoon that disappointingly arrived after the zinginess of a sunny morning walking through sun dappled forest. The albergue was equally grey and utilitarian. After a short walk up and down the one street of the town I took myself to my bunk and read for the rest of the afternoon and evening. On the up side I met a very pleasant American woman who I was to meet up with frequently for the rest of what was going to be my trip. She was doing the whole camino and I envied her.

The next day was Friday 13th and I dreaded all day sustaining an unlucky blister or injury. But it proved to be a case of realising how futile worry is, like walking around all the time with your umbrella up even when it is not raining. So I left Zubiri for Pamplona my next destination.  I had to pass by a belching magnesium factory on the edge of town. Then the path spread into a clearing with forest ahead. Before that there was a small waterfall and a sign saying “End of industrial zone” Someone had scrawled “Utopiste debout. Tu n’est pas seul”. Utopian begin – you are not alone. Very canny I thought. I walked on through the morning birdsong and spent a merry while hailing curious cows and sheep in nearby fields, peering out of hedgerows as I passed. It was indeed Utopia there on the shady forest path interspersed with fields where I still saw wee slips of mist rising in places as the heat took hold of the morning.

 I caught up with the American lady and we chatted for a while before I sped up a bit. Then the French man who had rescued me from the pump fiasco in St Jean Pied de Port passed me bestowing  a merry smile before heading on. I watched him stride off in a determined manner as if he was trying to walk to the end of the world which in theory he probably could do. The final end of the Camino de Santiago is a place called Finisterre which means the “End of the World” – the furthest westerly point of Spain.

En route to Pamplona I made a detour to a small thirteenth century church perched on a hill at a place called Zalbadica. I wound my way up a grassy, tranquil hill path, hearing only the hum of a warm May late morning. The ascent up the hill made my background aches and pains less comfortable than they had been. So I was glad to suddenly come upon the church opening out into a glade and softly shaded by trees. I made a beeline for a stone bench and flopped down, mightily relieved, flinging my now stone heavy rucksack as far away as I possibly could from me. I half closed my eyes for ten minutes and let the sun dappled and green hued light throw patterns behind my eyelids.  Soon I made my way into the church in this hushed and seemingly secret place up on a hill, away from the busy comings and goings of camino life. I knelt down in a pew, knees protesting and bent my head.  Suddenly for some reason I starting to think a lot about my father and became very emotional there in the church, crying softly under a benevolent depiction of Our Lady. I was surprised at the sudden wrench I felt. It was a long time later later while writing this and remembering my camino trip or what had by then indeed become a pilgrimage that I understood the reason for this – an eerie foretelling of what was to come further on into that  year.

Leaving France. Entering Navarre Province.Spain